Urban Analysis and Development

Urban analysis and development studies for the area of the Santa Chiara Hospital in the city of Pisa (Italy): a comparison between different redevelopment options 1 Sergio Mattia*, Alessandra Oppio**, Alessandra Pandolfi*** * Department of Architecture and Planning (Di.A.P.), Via Bonardi n. 3, Politecnico di Milano ([email protected]) ** Department of Building Environment Sciences and Technology (Best), Via Bonardi n. 9, Politecnico di Milano ([email protected]) 1. Introduction This paper represents an excerpt of the theses of the I cycle of the Master in “Real Estate Finance and Development – Part Time” and concerns the projects prepared for the International Town Planning Competition announcement called “Urban redevelopment of the University Hospital of Santa Chiara, facing Piazza dei Miracoli”, promulgated from the Town Council of Pisa (by the Building standards and urban redevelopment office of the Town planning division) in 2007 and developed through an only phase with pre-selection. The Competition terms have been accepted by 40 architecture design groups (of which, 10 have been selected for the following project pre-design stage 2) in order to solve the urban planning “conflict” emerged between the hospital uses of the involved area and the symbol of the Township of Pisa, the Unesco site of Piazza dei Miracoli, on which the Santa Chiara pole overlooks. The essential requirement of the International Competition was the selection of the best design idea on the basis of some fundamental principles, particularly referring to the capability of the scheduled investments to create value: therefore, the primary purpose of the Master theses was to evaluate the extent to which every project meets different levels of economical and financial balance. The area took up by the Santa Chiara complex is more than 10 hectares wide and it is placed in the heart of the old town of the city of Pisa, immediately nearby the Cathedral dome square, listed in the Unesco sites as World Heritage. On this kind of qualification depends the need for a Management plan that could take into account not only the demand for the preservation of the cultural heritage, but also its correct use in the wider cultural, social and economical context. The Management plan should be enlarged to an appropriate surrounding area of adequate size, referring to the reciprocal influence between the site and its framework, not only considered as respect area, but also as service zone or as space that could take an advantage from the monumental presence. The Santa Chiara Hospital area is very close to the square, therefore, it should be absolutely considered by the Management plan of the site. The Redevelopment plan of the Hospital and University area should then consider both the monumental presence and the complexity of functions, referring to services and actual or predictable “pressures” in the historical surroundings; consequently, it will or should become an important part of the Unesco Management plan (cf. the Competition materials, 2007). The Santa Chiara Hospital and University complex has been developed since the year 1257 and it has always been intended for hospital and university uses; referring to the plans of the actual Administration, this area will be disused and redeveloped, whereas the functions originally set in this place will be relocated in the Cisanello district, a quarter, identified on purpose, in a part of the city that is more suitable to receive the specific features of the displaced functions. Moreover, the design of the redevelopment plan has been elaborated to be consistent to the directives on the drawing up of management plans of Unesco sites. As a matter of fact, the importance of the Santa Chiara area for the city of Pisa is actually strategic, as it represents the opportunity both of developing the city center out of the Piazza dei Miracoli pole and of enlarging and emphasizing the old town characteristics, creating new 1. This study has been developed with Arch. Maria Mattia, Arch. Federica Pedroni and Eng. Massimiliano Tromba, that contributed in the writing and editing of the master thesis that is described in this essay. 2 For knowledge aims, the names of the 10 groups selected for the final phase are reported: Luigi Snozzi Architetto; Metrogramma: Arch. Alberto Francini; Arch. Giorgio Grassi Associati; Allies and Morrison; Arch. Carlo Magnani St. Architer; David Chipperfield Architects L.T.D.; Oriol Bohigas; Arch. Cino Zucchi; Arch. Gian Piero Buffi; Canali Associati s.r.l. relationships and increasing the value of the elements that today are the symbols for the urban environment of latent and unexpressed values. The International Town Planning Competition took place through a restricted procedure and consisted of an only phase, anticipated simply from a pre-selection stage (developed in the so-called “open form”), planned in order to select the participants, open to all the groups that met the requirements pointed out in the competition announcement. The so-called “single competition stage” is anonymous and it consists in the drawing up of the design of the redevelopment plan in accordance with the requirements involved in the call and it was reserved to up to ten applicants, selected during the pre-selection stage as previously described. The winner (the project elaborated from the group of David Chipperfield) received a prize of 100.000,00 €. Bocca d’Arno Port G. Galilei Airport Intervention area Arno River Cisanello Hospital Economy area of San Cataldo Bechi Luserna barrack Navicelli quarter Old town Ospedaletto quarter Old town area Former streetcar Pisa-Livorno line Fig. 1 – The urban area of Pisa (Reference: Bohigas, 2007) The consciousness of this chance to redevelop the Santa Chiara Hospital area emerges clearly both from the materials of the Competition announcement and, first of all, from the town planning documentation that dealt with the area of Pisa and particularly with its old town 3: an unique opportunity for such a unique city. As a matter of fact, the hospital complex of Santa Chiara represents an exemplary slice of the history of the city of Pisa, from the Middle Ages up until now, whose first nucleus is the Campo dei Miracoli square, though its placement in the urban system is unexpected 4. The old Misericordia Hospital could be assumed as the symbolic relationship between two urban metaphors: the sacred city (where the salvation viaticum comes true from the earth Jerusalem to the heavenly Jerusalem that, with its de niveo marmore volumes, represents a sort of revelation after death) and the actual centre (made of stones and bricks), that stretches to South and South-East. Moreover, the role of imaginary core 5 given to Piazza dei Miracoli is really singular, as it is at the border of the old urban centre: the centrality of this place is equivalent, actually, to the lack of a real central polarity, of a square that acts as urban catalyst (as verified in many Italian and European cities), replaced from a linear central area that twists and turns through two extreme poles, Piazza dei Miracoli and the Railway Station (in between of which the symbolic center of the political power, the Municipality offices, is located, overlooking on the 3. The objective given from the Public Administration through the programming documentation concerns the drawing up of a unitary project decided for the urban scale development and adapted both to the importance of the area and to the interest that the relationships between the area and the rest of the city will assume. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. 4. Actually, Piazza dei Miracoli is not the real center of the city, even if it is its symbolic fulcrum (being physically placed just outside the real monumental area, although it is less famous then the Leaning Tower esplanade): as paradigm of the globality and of the punctual hierarchy of values, the entire monumental system expresses the capability of symbolizing and ordering profane and eternal spaces and times, as shown by the Cosmogony (painted in the Holy area), the seasons sculptures carved in the Baptistery doorposts and the metronimic meaning of the bell tower. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. 5. The objective of this complex operation should be putting to regime the presence of the “high quality and planetary level calamity” (as Salvatore Settis defined the monumental complex of the Piazza dei Miracoli) and of the ascertained vocation to become symbol city of culture and scientific training with the different historical and typological souls, recognizable within the area. Our reprocessing of the International Competition materials. Arno river, near Ponte di Mezzo – an important bridge). Near to the cathedral dome square, the hospes peregrinorum marks out the limits with the distribution and organization system of the city; conceived since the XIII century as a fortified monastic citadel, it is identified with a solid volume in the networks of vegetable gardens, that only in the last centuries have been filled with the advancing of the hospital structures 6. Referring to this dialectic, the redevelopment plans for the existing built complex have been elaborated in order to create new relationships with the Campo dei Miracoli square, completing the “framework” formed by the different linear horizontal architectural systems of the walls, of the Holy area and of the Sinopie museum, a system that contains and prepares to the “miracle” of the huge emptiness of the monumental complex, as it was in Rome for the San Pietro Square before the realization of Via della Conciliazione 7. In reference to the actual configuration, the collocation and combination of the different buildings – the holy complex and the hospital – that border Piazza dei Miracoli identifies the relationship between some fundamental museum functions: the Enlightenment roots (that collects the antique remains and the burial-grounds of some famous people), the didactic-conservative of the Sinopie museum and, finally, the innovative one that sets out in continuity to the artistic and scientific culture represented by a museum open to multidisciplinarity and multiculturality.

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